In 1935, a Black linguist recorded Louisiana Creole speakers on aluminium discs

Dockworkers at New Orleans in 20th century, the creole language may have been spoken at this time. (Image credit: Wikimedia Commons) There is something extraordinary about how memory finds its way back to us through our senses. A familiar sound or voice can transport us to an entire world we thought existed only in the past. But if you were ever to hear the voice of someone who lived centuries before you, that sound could catapult you into a new world of memory and history, making it the most palpable realisation of a past only ever seen in photographs or recorded in texts.For a linguist, hearing the voices preserved in forgotten recordings has offered a profoundly original way of understanding how people spoke, the expressions they used, and how languages became distinct within their communities. With a collection of recordings made in Louisiana in 1935, the voices of people speaking a language that was once present in the social fabric and everyday life of New Orleans are now being brought back to life.How were the recordings captured and then researched?The recordings were made by Lorenzo Dow Turner, a pioneering Black linguist who travelled through Louisiana in July 1935 to doc...